Netfolks with more elevated tastes can dial up the WebMuseum, Paris, or check out the works of new digital artists from Boston or New York or dozens of other big cities. Obviously the Net isn’t the same as beholding a Rembrandt in Holland and gazing into the face of a local man or woman a few feet away. That’s screamingly clear. Stoll, the near Snubbite, correctly notes that “Rembrandt painted real people—their facial features and mannerisms live on today in the Dutch population. Dressed in period costumes, I’ll bet the security guard with his war medals and the young woman tour guide would look as if they stepped out of one of those incredibly detailed paintings.” Moving and true. Imagine, however, the benefits of the WebMuseum to people without the Snubbites’ ability to jet to Amsterdam or Paris. What’s more, the Web brings its own glories to compensate; I can view Artist X’s work, then call up text about the person or the times; if anything the Web can provide _more_ context than do the skimpy handouts available at most museums. Caviling away, Stoll also objects that computers can’t reproduce the art exactly. But colors and resolution will just keep improving. The Snubbites who rant about lost details remind me of the foes of electronic books; incorrectly, given the ease of digitizing everything, the foes worry that new technology could kill off distinctive type-faces. But we shouldn’t preserve art and literature just by attending to the detail work. Culture also needs a place in the public mind; da Vinci-class art should be free, or close to it, by way of the Net. That is surely the ethos of Nicholas Pioch. An ex-Microsoft intern now studying economics in his native France, he is behind the WebMuseum, Paris, the new name it bears, now that bureaucrats won’t let him say, “Le WebLouvre.” Within Le WebLouvre—there, I’ll say it anyway—I saw such da Vincis as _Mona Lisa_ and _Virgin and Child with the Infant John the Baptist and St. Anne_. I went on to look at Rembrandts, van Goghs, Cezannes, Dalis, Klees, and Manets, among others, and to read two warnings. “If you think the law prevents you from viewing these exhibits, you should stop now and do something more interesting, such as flying to Paris and touring live!” Pioch wrote. “Some companies may be trying to get a monopolistic grab on arts and culture,” he said elsewhere, “developing a pay-per-view logic, shipping out CD-ROMs while trying to patent stuff which belongs to each of us: a part of _our_ human civilization and history.”